


Knowing You're Home

by CinnamonLily



Series: The Alpha and the Way [2]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Accidental Baby Acquisition, Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, F/F, F/M, Falling In Love, Fluff, Found Family, Good Alpha Peter, Good Peter, Kid Fic, Lawyer Peter Hale, M/M, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Multi, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Pack Dynamics, Pack Feels, Single Parent Stiles Stilinski, ish
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-05-06
Updated: 2018-05-26
Packaged: 2019-05-03 03:50:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,432
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14560248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CinnamonLily/pseuds/CinnamonLily
Summary: Peter happened to be in the right place at the right time, and scooped up Stiles and his daughter, Poppy. This is the story of what happened next.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This fic won't make sense unless you read the first part of the series!
> 
> I don't know how often I'll update this, but here it is! I have so many ideas, so I hope they will continue pouring out of my head.

* * *

 

Stiles watched his now empty plate. Somehow, he’d inhaled the omelet. He wasn’t sure when he ate the last time, so it made sense.

He wasn’t ready to talk, and Peter seemed to understand that. Jesus. _Peter Hale_. Stiles rubbed his face with his hands, and then looked around at the sorry excuse of a house. It was crap, but it was everything he could afford right then. When his gaze landed on Poppy across the open layout in the living room, sitting on the floor playing with some second hand toys and her prized possession; an American Girl doll, Willa, who looked a lot like her—a present from her grandpa and Melissa.

Stiles smiled, as Poppy handed Willa’s hair brush to Peter who was sitting next to her like it was no big deal.

“Now you!” she insisted, and Peter, with a gentle expression on his face, did exactly as demanded of him.

Stiles tried not to feel ashamed of the house. Or be embarrassed of the situation they were in. It was just that his mistakes had led them here, and every little good thing—except Poppy—had somehow soured along the way.

“I’ll need to go talk to your daddy for a bit, pup.” Peter finished tying the ribbon in Willa’s hair, then handed her back to Poppy. He casually ran his hand over Poppy’s head and slid his fingers down to her shoulder, touching her neck, scenting her to strengthen the bond. Poppy smiled absently and continued to fiddle with her doll.

Peter got off the floor and came to Stiles, looking at him seriously. “Will you be my beta, Stiles,” he asked, and something inside Stiles shook with relief, much like it had when he’d first seen Peter in his house.

“I don’t know if I have much to give, b—”

“Nobody talks shit about my betas,” Peter snapped, his eyes flaring red and the old fierceness showing itself for the first time.

Stiles gulped, then averted his gaze and nodded. He got to his feet and stood before Peter, realizing they were pretty much even in body shape now, although Peter had the wolfy advantage and always would.

“Yes,” he said and looked into Peter’s eyes that were now bleeding back to red. “I accept you as my alpha.”

Peter narrowed his gaze then, looking skeptical for a moment. Even after all these years, Stiles could read him, and raised a hand to touch Peter’s chest with his fingertips.

“Hey, no. You’re not a convenient savior. I’m fucked up and miserable and pretty fucking hopeless—”

“Daddy!” Poppy scolded him from the living room. “One F word is okay once in a while, but that was two!”

Stiles dropped his head and chuckled. “I’m sorry, baby girl!”

“Alright,” Peter said, smiling slightly. “Tell me again.”

Stiles raised his gaze to Peter’s. “I accept you as my alpha, Peter Hale.” Then he tilted his head to submit to Peter’s wolf.

The growly rumble Peter let out as he leaned in to scent Stiles properly was definitely not human. Stiles felt something shift inside him, as if suddenly he was anchored to something again, like he once had to Beacon Hills and his dad, or maybe just his dad, and realized that must be a pack bond.

Peter lifted his head and his eyes faded into their usual beautiful blue.

Suddenly a small throat was cleared next to them, and Poppy tugged at Peter’s fingers.

“Now do me.”

Grinning, Stiles watched as Peter knelt in front of her.

“Poppy Stilinski, do you accept me as your alpha?” he asked seriously, as if kids wouldn’t automatically belong to the packs their parents did.

Solemnly, Poppy peered at him for a few beats. “Do you have a lot of money?” she asked, and Stiles’s breath hitched as he slapped a palm over his own mouth.

“Yes, I do.”

“Are you going to take care of my Daddy and me?”

“Yes. I will protect you two and the rest of my pack to my last breath, Miss Poppy,” Peter promised, and Stiles could feel a tear escape his eye and roll to touch his fingers as it made its way down his face.

“Okay. I will ‘cept you to be my alpha,” Poppy said firmly, and nodded twice. Then she tilted her head waited for Peter to scent her. Once he had done it, he blew a raspberry to her neck, making her squeal, giggle, and  then immediately slap her little hands to his chest and shoulder. “No!”

Peter stopped immediately and looked at her seriously. “Okay.”

“Daddy says if I don’t like someone touchin’ me somewhere or some way, I can say no,” she explained.

“He’s very much right with that.”

“I just don’t like tickling and it tickled,” she offered an explanation, then smiled shyly at Peter.

“I’ll keep that in mind,” Peter promised.

He got to his feet and looked at Stiles. “I want you two to pack your stuff, whatever you’ll need right away, and come with me today. I can send one of the betas with you or alone to get the rest tomorrow or the day after.”

Stiles pulled his shoulders back and rolled his neck. He could do this, he could not just give in without a question. Not ever again.

“Can you tell me more about your pack and where you live first?” he asked, and followed Peter to the living room.

Poppy climbed onto his lap and they looked at Peter expectantly.

“My pack lives on forty acres of land, about an hour of the city. There’s a large main house, and a guesthouse, but nobody likes to stay there alone as it’s a bit off the main house.”

“How many people do you have in the pack?” Stiles held Poppy closer, feeling a protective surge when thinking about having her so close to strangers.

“Three betas that live on the property, and two who live elsewhere, but come by pretty much each weekend. We have pack nights.” Peter smiled, and momentarily, Stiles had hard time reconciling the man who had sat on the stair looking grim and being snarky at a bunch of teenagers to this version of Peter.

“You’re like, Peter v3.0,” he blurted out, and for a few seconds, Peter looked at him with such deep fondness, that it took his breath away and made him blush.

“What are their names?” Poppy piped up, breaking the moment.

“There’s Nolan, Benny, and Roo who live at the house, and Andrea and Catrina who live elsewhere.”

“Are there any kids?”

“No, they’re all adults. But who knows, maybe there will be kids one day,” Peter said and smiled slightly.

“And there’s room for us?” Stiles wanted to make sure.

“Yes, it’s a big house. I promise.” Peter looked at Poppy again. “There are animals and there’s a garden and an orchard.”

“Wait, you live on a _ranch_?” Stiles must’ve looked thoroughly surprised, because Peter laughed.

“Yes, of sorts. We have a donkey, some miniature pigs, a few cats, and I think Nolan said something about a rescue cow the other day.”

Stiles felt overwhelmed, which Poppy covered nicely by asking a thousand questions about the animals until Stiles could think and talk again.

“Okay, we need to pack,” Stiles said finally, and the expression on Peter’s face took his breath away. He realized Peter really did want him in his pack, saw him as an asset, and was ready to stand behind him and Poppy, or even in front of, if the situation called for it.

When Poppy was in her room putting things in a duffel with superhero print on it, Stiles went to Peter.

“Look, I’ll tell you about… everything. When there aren’t little ears around. It’s… it’s not very good and….” He looked away from Peter and swallowed hard.

“It’s fine. I’m in no rush, Stiles. Go pack, okay? I’ll make a few calls and we’ll get on the road.”

Stiles nodded and went to figure out what he could leave behind for the time being.


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

Peter called the house first. Since it was afternoon, it was likely only Benny would be inside, and that meant Peter let the phone ring for a longer time for his oldest beta to get to the phone.

“Hale residence, Benjamin speaking.”

“Hello, Benny.” Peter smiled.

“Alpha, what can I do for you?” Benny asked brightly.

“I encountered something surprising today, an old friend whom I haven’t seen in years. He and his pup have joined the pack, and I need rooms prepared for them. I know it’s last minute, but if you put Roo and Nolan to work, you can at least get started.”

“Oh, that sounds wonderful, Alpha. I’ll call them inside and start on it immediately. How old is the pup?”

“She’s—Stiles, how old is Poppy?” he called toward the bedrooms.

“I’m three and a half!” she called from her room.

“Miss Poppy is three and a half,” Peter relayed the information. “We should be there in about two hours, if not sooner.”

“Alright. We’ll see you soon, Alpha.”

“See you then, Benny.”

 

Once Stiles and Poppy had packed—and Stiles had checked Poppy’s packing and repacked it with more sensible things—they left the house.

The fact that neither of them seemed sad to leave made Peter feel even happier about Stiles joining the pack. For Peter, the pack house was home, somewhere he loathed to leave, even though he had to at least three days a week. Every time he came back and saw the house when he got to a certain spot on the driveway, he felt like something eased up inside his chest.

The pack house felt more like home than Beacon Hills had since the fire.

In the car, Poppy fell into a light doze, and Stiles seemed content to be quiet until they got further away from his neighborhood.

“How are the rest of the Hales?” he asked after a while.

“Well, Cora is in Japan at the moment. She met a kitsune and although she says they’re platonic friends, I’m not so sure about that. She’s technically in my pack, but she rarely comes around.” He glanced at Poppy through rearview mirror and smiled. He could remember Cora being that small. “Derek is in New York. He got his degree in architecture and works for this hip company that makes environment and energy friendly tiny houses or something like that.”

Stiles chuckled. “Sounds like the hipster type stuff Derek never admitted being into.”

“He’s also more true to himself nowadays. But that’s his story to tell,” Peter said, smiling slightly. Derek had finally realized he was asexual and rarely felt romantic attraction either. It had taken time, but at least he got to live his truth now.

“Does he belong to any packs?”

“No, but he has a friendly alpha friend who keeps him from becoming an omega.” Then, because technically although not a Hale, she was part of his family anyway, Peter said, “Malia is in Maine somewhere. Works for a preserve there. We talk during the holidays and she stops by sometimes, but that’s about it.”

Stiles hummed. “Dad and Melissa got married a few years ago. Scott got married to this wolf girl from Ohio somewhere. They have a few pups, a pack of their own, in Beacon Hills.”

“Do you ever go back?” Peter asked, hearing the tightness in Stiles’s voice when he spoke of Beacon Hills.

“Not since Poppy was one or so.”

It seemed like he didn’t want to talk about anything more, so Peter stayed quiet, too. There had to be a reason or multiple for Stiles staying away from his dad for that long, but he didn’t want to press.

“There’s a little town about two miles from the house. We do go further though, do a monthly shopping thing and then if multiple people need things during the week, they either go to town or to somewhere bigger, depending on what they need.” He was quiet for a while and continued. “I give an allowance to the pack members who don’t work. It’s nonnegotiable, and even though the pack takes care of the house together and share chores, it doesn’t mean you owe me anything. So you just have to accept it, and you’ll have some money until you find a job. I don’t care what you do with it, but the others pay for random things like clothes and books, and Nolan like video games and so on.”

Stiles seemed to think it over and finally sighed. “Okay. I have maybe a hundred and fifty dollars in my bank account and that was going towards next month’s rent. I… I’m so screwed, Peter. I can’t be proud now.” The brokenness of his tone made Peter’s wolf whine inside. Peter the man hated it just as much, if not more.

“First of all, tomorrow, we’ll sort out that house. Make sure you get out of the rental agreement without a problem. Secondly, there’s no need for that sort of pride within a pack, Stiles. I promised to take care of everything, and I will. I helped Catrina through grad school, and I pay Roo’s courses whenever they want to learn a new art thing. It’s… I have enough money to last a lifetime, both from the old insurances and some Hale investments we found after you went to college. And I work for an esteemed law firm, which doesn’t exactly make me poorer.”

Poppy woke up just as Peter turned the car down the driveway. “We there yet?” she asked and rubbed her eyes.

“Almost, look, we’re on the driveway already,” Peter told her, and she leaned forward in the car seat Stiles had luckily in his house, even though they didn’t own a car—anymore, Stiles had said sheepishly.

It took a couple of minutes to make it to the yard that was smack dab in the middle of the property.

“You got to be shitting me,” Stiles breathed when they got to the yard. “A wraparound porch?”

“What?” Peter smirked at him. “What’s wrong with that?”

“Daddy!” Poppy scolded Stiles for cursing.

“Sorry, baby girl, but…,” Stiles trailed off, looked at Peter, and said, “This is so effing wholesome it would make me sick if I didn’t like it so much.”

Smiling, Peter parked the car in front of the garage, and opened the doors with the remote on his sun visor. The garage could fit three vehicles and was a bit away from the house, mainly so that the sounds of the vehicles wouldn’t wake up anyone if they happened to be asleep. Wolf hearing and all.

Stiles seemed to be over everything for now, at least until when they got out of the car and Roo bounced around the corner and startled him.

“Holy fuuuudge,” Stiles exclaimed and held his chest, while Poppy peered at Roo curiously from behind Peter’s legs.

“Sorry! Hi, Alpha!” Roo beamed at them, their multicolored floppy mohawk drawing Poppy’s attention flame would a moth’s.

“Slow down, Roo. These are Stiles, and his pup, Poppy.”

“Hi, nice to meet you,” Stiles said politely and held out a hand to Roo, who shook it with their usual cheer.

“I’m Poppy,” she announced from behind Peter’s legs, and he could feel the curiosity pouring out of her.

Roo came to them and knelt to her level, then held out a hand. “I’m Roo, and yes, you can touch my hair.”

Poppy giggled, shook their hand, and finally raised her other one to Roo’s rainbow hair. “Wow…,” she whispered, then looked at Stiles, opened her mouth, and—

“Not until you’re at least thirteen, missy,” Stiles said firmly, making the other adults laugh.

“I came to see if you had anything to carry,” Roo explained their sudden appearance.

“Nope, not today. Might need help tomorrow, if I’m to clear out the house.” Stiles frowned at the thought, probably of going back there, if Peter was to guess.

“Sure, I can do that, and Nolan will help, too. Or if you don’t want to go at all, we can do that for you for sure.”

“We have a horse trailer and I think we can fit everything in it,” Peter said as he gestured for the others to start toward the house. “It’s clean, because Nolan likes it to be spotless, and we don’t really use it much anyway as we don’t have horses.”

“Donkey!” Poppy piped up and tugged at Peter’s fingers with the hand that wasn’t holding her doll.

“Yes, we have a donkey. Once you’re settled, Roo or Nolan will take you to look at him, but you need to be good and do what we tell you first,” Peter said firmly, and she nodded seriously.

Roo went ahead to open the front door for them, and when they stepped inside, Peter could feel and smell the conflicted emotions from Stiles. Since Poppy had gone silent and was hugging her father’s leg now, Peter stepped up to Stiles and placed a hand on his lower back.

“Stiles, welcome home,” he murmured. “This is the Hale Pack’s home, and these three are my betas.” He gestured at the welcome wagon of three very different people standing in the large open living area.

“Welcome to the pack, my name is Benjamin,” Benny said, and stepped closer, looking at Stiles and Poppy with kindness.

He looked like a regular grandpa, really, but when he flashed his golden eyes, he momentarily became an aged wolf, regal in his kindness.

Stiles shook his hand. “I’m Stiles, and this is my daughter, Poppy.”

“This is Nolan,” Benny introduced the tall, biracial man who stepped forward to greet the new pack members next.

Stiles glanced at Peter and smiled briefly, his eyes betraying the thought that Nolan radiated the same calm Boyd had back in the day. That was part of what had drawn Peter to Nolan in the first place.

“Hi,” Nolan said, shook Stiles’s hand, and smiled at Poppy.

“And you’ve obviously met our Roo,” Peter concluded the introductions.

“Yes.” Stiles smiled, looking slightly overwhelmed.

“Welcome to the Hale House for Queer Weres,” Roo piped up, and Nolan poked at them on the arm with one thick finger.

“Behave,” he said, but looked fond.

“Alright, let’s see where to put your things,” Peter told Stiles and Poppy, and Roo started ahead of them to the stairs to the second story.

“Alright,” Stiles repeated, his scent turning into something slightly more at ease, if not quite relaxed yet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a rough couple of days, but here's a chapter anyways. Not sure when there'll be more, but soon, I hope!


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's some more. I still have no idea where this is going as a whole, but we'll see.

* * *

 

 

Stiles sat on his new bed and tried to take everything in without letting it overwhelm him. He’d worked on getting rid of his panic attacks after he left Beacon Hills for college. He’d succeeded, right until life had thrown him a curveball that had smacked the fucking attacks right back out of his damaged psyche.

His watched as his hands shook, and wondered briefly what he should do next. He’d unpacked his stuff, and helped Poppy with hers. The room Peter’s betas had prepared for her was lovely. Peter had promised that if Roo was willing, they’d paint a mural on the wall to make it more like a kid’s room instead of a guestroom, and of course Poppy had loved that idea.

Stiles and Poppy’s rooms were at the end of the second story hall and connected with a bathroom. It was ideal in all counts, and Stiles couldn’t help but to feel safe there, feel that Poppy was safe, too.

There was a knock on his door, and Stiles jerked his gaze up. “Yeah?”

The door opened and Benny peered in. “I just wanted to know if you needed anything?” The old man—wolf—looked like someone’s grandpa, and Stiles wondered how he’d come to be Peter’s beta.

“N-no,” Stiles managed. “It’s a bit… much,” he admitted without meaning to.

Benny chuckled softly and stepped inside. He didn’t come any closer, but leaned to the wall by the door. “I know. I remember that feeling. When Peter Hale wants someone to be safe and cared for, he does it properly.”

Stiles nodded, then snorted. “I knew him when I was in my teens. Let’s just say that on some level I knew he was capable of this, but I never would’ve believed it. This is… wholesome. Peter back in the day….”

Benny hummed. “Yes, but with everything that befell his family, can you blame him?”

Maybe Stiles shouldn’t have been surprised that Peter had disclosed that information—or at least some of it—to Benny, but he was. When Benny saw his expression, he smiled kindly. “He has secrets, but he doesn’t keep the important things from us. He’s a great alpha, someone you can count on.”

Then something suddenly occurred to Stiles, and he asked, “Do you guys have an emissary?”

“Not an official one, no. One of Peter’s old friends in Milwaukee is our acting emissary if things come to that, but he’s not official. Peter’s his own emissary where needed.”

Stiles nodded. “I can see that. He doesn’t trust easily, at least didn’t, back in the day.”

“No, he doesn’t.” Benny looks like he wants to say something more, but doesn’t know how to, exactly.

It takes Stiles a few seconds to figure it out. “I first met him when he was in a coma still. And I was the one who threw the Molotov cocktail at him to kill him.”

Benny’s eyes widened, then he let out a wry, little huff. “Oh, that explains it.”

“Explains what?”

“Oh, nothing at all.” He pushed himself away from the wall. “The alpha is cooking. He said he’d be done in about thirty minutes. You might want to go find Nolan and Poppy at the barn.”

Feeling confused, Stiles nodded, and followed Benny down the stairs. Benny went to the kitchen and Stiles through the front door into the early evening light.

The place was gorgeous. It certainly wasn’t something Stiles at sixteen would’ve ever seen Peter living in. He would’ve thought the place where Peter made his den would be a modern penthouse in some high-rise in a large city somewhere.

Parts of Peter were just as Stiles had thought back in the day. The fact that he was a lawyer, for one. He wasn’t sure when he’d learned about Peter’s pre-fire profession, but it hadn’t surprised him in the least. There was enough shark in the wolf for it to fit perfectly.

Then again, he’d been in Stiles’s neighborhood on a pro bono gig. That… well, the new Peter, the man and alpha he was now, Stiles could admit that fit as well.

He walked toward the large red barn, looking around the yard, just taking in everything. There were paddocks to the side of the barn and it looked like they wrapped around the back of the building, the fence disappearing from his sight, continuing who knew how far. There was space for multiple horses, he thought, but then again, what did he know about horses.

Hell, he knew more about _centaurs_ than actual horses. The thought made him chuckle just as he stepped inside the barn.

Nolan looked up from where he was sweeping the aisle. He had a small, curious smile on his lips. In that moment, he looked so much like Boyd it hurt Stiles’s heart. Nolan inhaled and the curiosity was replaced by obvious worry.

“Stop sniffing at me,” Stiles scolded him. “I somehow keep forgetting adult wolves do that. Nothing I can hide from you guys.”

Nolan chuckled and shook his head. “I’m not a wolf.”

Stiles stopped in his tracks and blinked. “What?”

“Not a wolf. Benny and the girls are. Roo and I are… other weres.”

“Huh.”

“Daddy!” Poppy squealed, suddenly barreling down the aisle to him. A very amused looking Roo followed her in a slightly more sedate pace. Slightly.

“Hey, baby girl.” Stiles grabbed her and lifted her to his hip. “Did you see animals?”

“Yes!” She looked so happy and excited and just so _different_ that Stiles choked up.

She didn’t notice the change in his mood, but suddenly Nolan was closer, his large hand between Stiles’s shoulder blades, giving support of the pack without him asking for it.

“Peter’s cooking,” Stiles managed to say. “We’re expected for dinner soon and you, little miss, need a proper washing before that.”

“She might’ve laid down with the piggies,” Roo confessed.

“Explains the straw in her hair.” Stiles nodded seriously, but grinned at Roo soon after to show he wasn’t upset. “Thanks for looking after her.”

“Daddy, the piggies are soooo cuuuuute,” Poppy started, and continued chattering about the animals she’d seen all the way back to the house, up the stairs, and into the bathroom.

Stiles decided he couldn’t let his child into dinner table smelling like the pigs, so he drew a bath and efficiently bathed his child. It went much faster with her babbling enthusiastically about the donkey and how Roo had said they might get chickens and so on and so forth, until he was drying her. He’d even managed to wash her hair. He knew the enthusiasm would fade at some point, but for now, he took any little blessing there was to be had in the situation they were in.

He helped her into her Avengers pajamas, then picked her up and carried her downstairs.

The others were in the large family room, and Stiles looked at them, confused. “Did you already eat?” He had no clue how long it had taken him to bathe Poppy, but he didn’t think it was that long.

“Oh no,” Peter said and got up from an armchair by a bookshelf. “We were waiting for you. The food will keep, after all.”

Stiles nodded, a little bit out of words.

They were shown to the large kitchen table, and Stiles wasn’t sure what he’d expected, but not this. He was shown to the seat closest to Peter at the end of the table, with Benny on the other side. There was a high pillow on the seat next to Stiles, and Nolan scooped Poppy up and planted her on it, making her giggle.

Roo sat on Poppy’s other side, and Nolan next to Benny.

Stiles didn’t understand why he was sitting next to the alpha in a pack that obviously followed at least some rank decorum. He was suddenly feeling tired, though, and couldn’t really muster the energy to question it.

“Poppy, do you like green beans?” Peter asked, and Poppy wrinkled her nose a little. “I take that as a no. Would you try these for me? You don’t have to eat them if you don’t like them.”

To Stiles’s surprise, after he’d put one bean onto her plate and she’d dutifully obeyed her alpha, she suddenly grinned. “Can I have more?”

“Of course, honey,” Stiles said, stunned.

He put some of the beans on his own plate, and passed the bowl on to Roo. The rest of the dinner, some meat stew and mashed potatoes to die for, was equally as good as the well-seasoned, buttery beans. Stiles might’ve made an obscene sound or two at the flavors bursting on his tongue.

“When did you learn how to cook like this?” he asked Peter when there was a lull in the comfortable dinnertime conversation.

“Talia thought me a lot,” Peter said, his tone surprisingly light. “I did take a few courses some years ago. Before I bought the house. I thought I’d have more to offer to a pack, I guess.”

When Stiles glanced around the table, he saw that everyone was trying to hide their surprise. He wasn’t sure what it was that caused that, whether mention of Talia, or the admission of wanting to look after his pack, of hell, even the fact that Peter opened up like this. Interesting.

“Well everything is amazing, so thank you, alpha,” Stiles said, and Poppy parroted in a very sleepy tone from her seat “Thank you alpha!”

Peter chuckled. “You’re welcome.”

Stiles didn’t have to be a wolf to sense how pleased Peter felt in that moment.

 

* * *

 

After he put Poppy to bed, Stiles found himself oddly restless. He still had ADHD, but it wasn’t nowhere near as bad as it used to be. He hadn’t had any medication for over a year, and he was dealing with it just fine. At least until tonight, it seemed.

He wandered down the stairs and out the door onto the wrap around porch. He smiled absently as he meandered on the porch, listening to the absence of city sounds. When he rounded a corner, he found Peter sitting on a deck chair, alone, his eyes closed.

“I know you’re there,” Peter said, without opening his eyes. “Might as well sit down.”

Stiles smiled and did as told. The deck chair next to Peter’s was comfortable, and Stiles curled up on it, just soaking in the evening and the feeling of safety.

His gaze wandered, and suddenly he noticed the carvings on the porch railing and the pillars supporting the roof. “Wards?” he asked, and Peter nodded.

“They sense intent. Won’t let anyone with bad intent into the house. It’s like mountain ash, forms a barrier.”

Stiles hummed. “Your friend did them?”

That made Peter open his eyes a bit. “Yeah, oh, you talked with Benny.”

Stiles nodded. “Why don’t you have an emissary?”

Something uncomfortable flashed on Peter’s face, almost vulnerable, and Stiles wondered if he’d had a relationship with someone he thought would fit the bill but hadn’t. He didn’t ask, just stayed quiet, waiting to see if Peter would answer.

Eventually, after closing his eyes again, Peter murmured, “Haven’t found the right fit. We’re not exactly the most conventional pack.”

Stiles snorted. “The Hale House for Queer Weres.”

“That, yes. And we’re not a wolf pack. Some emissaries have problems with that idea. Other weres live in packs or communities, but only wolves have emissaries for whatever reason.”

“Oh, right….”

“Besides, you know how high my standards are.”

Stiles laughed. Yeah, he did know that.

A sudden yawn made his jaw pop, and Peter winced beside him.

“Go to bed, Stiles.”

“Do you work tomorrow?”

“No, I took a couple of days off, just to get you and Poppy settled.”

Something about that hammered home how serious Peter was about this, about having them in his pack.

“Yeah, okay, good night,” Stiles said as he got up. He felt a bit choked up and didn’t want to blurt out anything else.

 

* * *

 

He slept like a baby, right until he didn’t. He woke up with a weird sort of jolt and realized that his pack bond was alert. Something was wrong.

He got out of bed and went to check up on Poppy who slept calmly in her bed. Based on the light through the window, it was still late at night, rather than early in the morning.

He padded out of the room and almost collided with Roo who was coming out of their room, halfway to the stairs.

Neither of them spoke, but instead moved as one to the stairs. The bedroom door closest to the top of the stairs was open, signaling that Peter was already downstairs investigating whatever was going on.

They found Peter—and Nolan—at the front door. Both men stood there as if frozen in place, staring at something, with Nolan just behind Peter’s shoulder.

A movement in Stiles’s peripheral vision caught his eye, and Benny in a worn bathrobe walked slowly toward them from his downstairs bedroom.

Roo had stopped in the middle of the entryway, and Stiles walked past them to get to Nolan. He nudged Nolan out of the way and peered past Peter.

Well, that was certainly something. There was a car seat in leaning against the porch railing by the steps, with a teary-eyed toddler sitting in it.

The child wasn’t more than maybe eighteen months old, and they were dressed in stained, thin clothing. Stiles realized the car seat had also seen better days. Someone had dumped a baby on the Hale pack’s porch.

The baby in question seemed transfixed with Peter, staring at the alpha as their lip wobbled. No sound came out, which felt odd to Stiles. Poppy had never been that quiet.

Then the movement caught his eyes. The baby was rubbing their chubby hand on their chest.

Stiles looked at Peter, realizing his alpha was full on protect the pack mode, but had no clue what to do when faced with a surprise toddler.

“For fuck’s sake,” Stiles grunted. “Do you smell or hear anyone else out there?”

Peter snapped out of it and shook his head. “No,” he managed through his fangs. “Just that.”

Stiles’s blood boiled. “‘ _That’_ happens to be a helpless child.”

“You don’t know that!” Peter snarled. “We’ve seen worse!”

“Yes, in Beacon Hills, Peter. Not here!” Stiles turned to look at the rest of the betas. “Right? Nothing magical creature hinky here?” Everyone shook their heads in unison.

Stiles turned back to Peter and pushed him aside. The alpha was too surprised to stop him.

Stepping closer, he got a better look at the baby. They were looking at him now, with their blue eyes brimming with tears. The motion of the chubby hand became more intent somehow, and then it hit Stiles.

“Jesus Christ, Peter,” he hissed. “The baby is trying to sign at you.”

“What?” Peter sounded confused as hell.

The child let out a sob at the words and continued the signing with renewed vigor.

“They’re signing. Sign language, Peter. Look,” Stiles crouched by the car seat and waited for Peter to approach. Then Stiles made the same sign at Peter. “This means ‘please.’”

The baby was still pleading them, _“Please. Please. Please. Please.”_ Over and over again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you liked it. Oh and no idea when the next update will be, as usual. Sorry about that!


	4. Chapter 4

Peter watched, still a bit stunned, as Stiles picked the baby up from the car seat and cradled the small body to his chest.

“Alpha?” Nolan asked from the doorway. “Should I go see if I can find tracks?”

“Right, uh… yes. Please. Take Roo with you. Shift so you’re stronger, just in case.” Peter couldn’t leave the house because there was a child—children—in it.

Nolan and Roo retreated into the house, and two minutes later a red fox and a large tiger loped out of the door and onto the yard.

“A motherfucking _tiger_?” Stiles gawked, and Nolan turned to chuff at him before he vanished after Roo into the bushes lining the yard, following a scent Peter couldn't catch from the porch, especially with the baby so close.

Peter took a step back when Stiles carried the baby inside and turned to grab the car seat. Except… there was a note there, an envelope that had been between the baby and the seat, and “Alpha Hale” had been written on it in familiar blocky letters.

“Should I take it?” Benny asked, and Peter realized he’d frozen to the spot for the second time that night.

“No, I’ll do it.” Peter snatched the letter and followed the elderly wolf into the house, leaving the seat on the porch after all.

He realized his hands were shaking as he walked into the family room and sat on one end of the couch. Stiles sat in the corner of it, cradling the baby to his chest, trying to calm the little person down.

Instead of hovering, Benny went into the kitchen to start coffee and probably sandwiches. Shifting took energy, and the others would need the food soon.

It took Peter a while to open the envelope, and he found that when he pulled the letter out, he couldn’t make himself unfold it to read it.

Benny came back and took the letter from him gently, then sat in the armchair by the bookshelf and started to read silently.

“What is it?” Stiles asked, as the scared baby finally quieted and fell promptly asleep on top of his chest.

“It’s Meg, isn’t it?” Peter asked without looking away from the envelope still in his hands.

“Yes, it’s Meg.”

“The baby is what, year and a half?” Peter felt choked up, sounded it, too, and he could feel alarm rolling off of Stiles.

“Just about. She says she didn’t want to bring trouble, like she said when she left. Claims she didn’t know she was pregnant when she left and… well, this is very personal. I shouldn’t even be reading this. But she decided to leave him to you, because you’re his alpha and his father, and she doesn’t have long until they catch her,” Benny paraphrased the letter, looking mildly uncomfortable at the contents.

“What’s with the signing?” Stiles asked, and it definitely wasn’t the question Peter would’ve guessed Stiles would ask first, by far.

“They were in hiding. Stayed for a while with one of Meg’s friends who was deaf. She knew some sign language before, and he learned some too, it seems, young as he is.”

“It’s smart,” Stiles said thoughtfully. “If you have to be quiet or calm a baby down fast silently.”

Peter looked at him numbly. “What?”

“I don’t know who his mother is and this isn’t the time for questions, but she was trying to keep him quiet in dangerous situations, I think.” The baby stirred and blinked his large eyes open. When he realized he wasn’t looking at his mother, his lip started to wobble, and he began to cry nearly silently again. “Oh poor baby,” Stiles said, his tone filled with sadness.

“Give him to Peter, his scent will calm him,” Benny instructed, and before he could react, the baby was in his arms, flashing yellow eyes at him and taking his scent in.

“Does he have a name?” Peter asked, staring at the oddly wondrous sight in front of him.

“Yes, his name is Samuel Francis.”

Samuel, as in Meg’s long-gone dad, and Francis, as in Peter’s middle name.

He had a son. Holy fuck.

 

* * *

 

 

Stiles went to bed after Peter and Benny urged him to do so. Between the two of them, they could surely take care of a baby. Sadly, there wasn’t a diaper bag with baby Sam, and Peter had to wait until Nolan and Roo came back before he could leave the house to drive to the closest store that was open all night.

When his betas got back inside and shifted, he could tell by their expressions that it wasn’t good.

“She had a car, she was clearly injured, there was blood where the car had been parked by the driveway,” Nolan recounted their findings.

“Is the baby yours?” Roo asked, looking at Sam curiously.

“Yeah, apparently so. His name is Sam.” Peter turned the baby toward Nolan and Roo, and watched his betas greet him. They flashed their eyes at Sam, and Peter knew the baby would flash his back.

“She doesn’t have long,” Nolan continued in a sad tone. “Would they extend the grudge to Sam?”

“No, I don’t think so,” Benny said thoughtfully. “It was never about anyone but her dad and by their pack laws, ancient as they are, a grudge like that is like a vendetta of sorts.”

“Yeah, and Samuel Senior passed away before they could kill him, and Meg was an only child. When they get her, it’s over. They’re upholding their part of the laws, they’re pretty strict about that.” Peter  tilted his head to breathe in Sam's baby scent.

“So they wouldn’t go after yet another generation, especially when he’s obviously a Hale.” Benny stroked Sam’s cheek with his wrinkly finger, making the pup smile.

“But why wouldn’t she come to us? Stay here? Make sure Sam is fine?” Roo looked troubled. She’d been their friend, too.

“Because she knows we wouldn’t just let them kill her, and they’re set on doing just that.” Nolan’s tone was matter of fact, but Peter knew that his beta was torn up on the inside. Stoic on the outside, Nolan held everything close to his heart, especially the heartbreaks of life.

 

* * *

 

 

Peter took Sam and his car seat and drove to town, looking for baby supplies at too early in the morning. He wasn’t sure everything he’d need, but went with the obvious like wipes and diapers and since it was a bigger supermarket, he even got the boy a blanket and a couple of toys. He’d gotten some baby food too, even though Sam seemed too old for most of it. Peter would have to take Stiles out with the kids soon, he’d know everything.

Peter stopped in his tracks at the thought. Sam looked at him curiously from the backseat of the pack’s SUV, and Peter smiled at the boy. “I don’t know why this happened. Why right now. Why I found Stiles and Poppy and then Meg dropped you off all within the same day and night, but….”

He started the car and checked his mirrors after making sure he’d put his seat belt on. Jesus, he was never that careful in his Lexus, but some part of him wanted to make sure he was the best alpha he could be, now that there were children in the pack again.

Sam made a baby babble sound in the back, and gnawed on the baby chew toy thing Peter had bought him.

The implications of having a child of his own—truly having one, after all he barely counted Malia as his daughter for the obvious reasons—were massive. He’d been ready to take care of Poppy like the girl was his own, because she was pack now.

“Oh Talia, remember when I told you I’d never have kids and I’d be happy without a pack of it came to that?” he murmured to the spirit of his sister. They’d never really gotten along that well, there’d always been something off between them, but they’d still been siblings.

Peter glanced into the rearview mirror and saw Sam drooping. Good.

He knew he’d done some bad shit in his life. He’d done evil things while being out of his mind with grief and pain, while his wolf had been only able to howl and howl inside him with no hope of ever getting out again.

Even now, he swallowed hard at the memories assaulting him. Drifting in and out of consciousness for _years_ in that hospital. Feeling the torn pack bonds, holes in his soul where his pack used to be, the torment new each time he got back from another bout of nothingness.

He thought he might know a thing or two how humans who lost their minds to Alzheimer’s and dementia felt at first. How nothing made sense and old things were new every time they remembered them. How the loss of someone was new every morning.

A sound from the back seat made him glance at the mirror again. Sam stared right at him, flashing his eyes as he silently waved his hands. Peter wasn’t sure if he was trying to sign or if it was just a baby thing.

“I’m okay, buddy. Go back to sleep,” he said, and reached his right hand back to stroke the boy’s leg. Their bond would only strengthen given time, and if Sam woke up to his distressed, angsty thoughts already….

Peter smiled at the thought of having his hands full. At least he had Stiles by his side, eh?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear you're going to get the Talk next time. I promise!


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The Talk you've been waiting for.

Stiles woke up to a persistent “Daddy, wake up!” that made him smile. He rolled onto his stomach and peered over the edge of the bed at Poppy who stood there, looking ever so impatient.

“Morning, baby girl.”

“Not morning anymore, it’s daytime! Uncle Benny said you gotta get up if you want breakfast at all!” She looked scandalized at the thought of no breakfast, and Stiles stretched, then rolled over.

“Okay, I’m going to shower and be right downstairs. Tell Uncle Benny I can make my own breakfast, okay?”

“Okay, Daddy!” She turned around to run out, when she suddenly screeched to a halt and whirled back around. “There’s a BABY!” she whisper-squealed, doing a fair accidental imitation of the pee-pee dance.

“I know, isn’t it exciting?” Stiles smiled at her.

“Uh-huh, I’m gonna go and show him Willa now!” She didn’t stop this time, just ran through the bathroom into her room, supposedly to get her doll.

By the time Stiles got into the bathroom and closed both doors to have some privacy, he heard Poppy running toward the stairs in the hall.

Stiles got into the shower and just breathed for a while. Peter had a son. Which meant Peter had had a relationship with this female wolf, Meg, whomever she was.

Stiles sighed. He wanted answers, but it meant that he would have to talk about Janey, and… yeah. He got out of the shower and dried himself, idly wondering who had dressed Poppy, because she’d been surprisingly color-coordinated in way that meant she hadn’t dressed herself.

A sudden wave of relief washed over him, and he had to grab the doorframe to stay upright. He had _pack_ now. There were people, other adults, to share the burden. Not that Poppy was burden, never would be, but parenting, especially alone, could be so fucking hard.

It hit him that he was safe. It seemed to come to him in waves. Every now and then, his mind would go “hey, you’re safe, relax, Poppy’s safe too, you can just breathe now” and… yeah. Stiles swallowed down some tears and went to see what was for breakfast.

When he got to the kitchen, he glanced at the wall clock and his eyes widened. It was just about eleven. How in the hell had he slept that long?

“It was an eventful night,” Benny said from where he stood in front of the stove, flipping pancakes, obviously smelling or feeling his shock.

“Oh you didn’t have to—”

“You grab some coffee and sit down. I think you’ll need it today.” Benny smiled over his shoulder at him.

“Right. Sam.”

“We made Peter go to sleep at seven, but he should be up soon. He’ll need some help buying stuff for Sam. None of us have actual experience of parenting a baby, even though we’ve been around them.”

Stiles nodded. Babies needed stuff. A lot of stuff. He remembered that. Then something occurred to him. “Is there room for Sam? Should Poppy move to my room?”

Benny chuckled in a good-natured way. “Oh no, son. There are plenty of rooms here. One for Sam, and there will still be Cat and Andrea’s rooms. They’re here so rarely that those might as well be used as guestrooms if need be.”

Stiles nodded. He guessed Benny would know, he’d been there longer.

“How did you come to be Peter’s beta?” Stiles asked after sipping his coffee for a moment.

“That was about… six years ago now. I wasn’t the first one he chose. That was Andrea. After her came Nolan, then me, then Roo, and Catrina just last year.” Benny flipped a pancake and turned to look at Stiles. “My nephew took over my pack when my sister died. He had a problem with me being gay. Hadn’t until that moment, at least not in a visible way, but as soon as our alpha was in the ground, he told me to either leave or be kicked out, physically.”

Stiles felt the urge to smash the young alpha’s head in. His rage for Benny’s treatment must’ve been obvious to the wolf, because he chuckled as he turned around to check on the pancake. “It’s fine now, and it was fine then. I told him, in front of the whole pack, that if he thought throwing out a sixty-eight-year-old pensioner was fine, then it wasn’t the kind of pack I wanted to be in anyway. And I left.”

“Where did you go?” Stiles couldn’t help but to be sucked into the story.

“I went to a friend who knew the emissary friend of Peter’s. My friend is a beta and survives outside a pack, she has pack bonds of sort with an old flame that’s an alpha. She couldn’t get me into a pack, the flame’s pack is filled to the brim. Luckily Peter wanted to scoop me up, and here I am.”

“Is it really like Roo said, is everyone in the pack queer?” Stiles thanked Benny for the plate of pancakes and bacon he put in front of Stiles.

“Everyone is in part of the LGBTQ+ community, one way or another.” Benny nodded. “Queer is a blanket term for who we are, and none of us mind the word.”

“Oh, I don’t either. I’m bisexual,” Stiles said and then moaned at the taste of the first bite of pancake. “These are so gooood.”

“Thank you, it’s been a while since I made a man your age make that sort of sound.” Benny winked at him, making Stiles chuckle.

“Are you flirting with my newest beta?” Peter asked as he walked into the kitchen, looking sleep ruffled and oddly adorable.

“Just enough to keep the blood flowing, alpha,” Benny said playfully, and grinned when Peter went to steal some bacon from the frying pan and kissed Benny’s neck as he reached over, scenting him in the process.

There was nothing sexual about the kiss, it was pure affection, and Stiles felt moved seeing Peter like this.

“Where’s Sam and Poppy?” Peter asked after he’d gotten himself some coffee and sat down opposite from Stiles at the smaller breakfast table by the kitchen windows.

“Nolan has Sam, the boy has taken to him. I heard Poppy run toward the barn a while ago, yelling at Roo to wait for her,” Benny replied.

“Good. We need to take a road trip to the Target in the next town over. We need stuff for Sam and I guess for Poppy as well,” Peter said thoughtfully.

“I guessed as much. What about my house?” Stiles felt like he was shrinking just thinking about the sad place.

“Nolan and Roo will go over and bring everything you didn’t,” Peter promised. “You don’t have to go there again.”

“Good. Can they—” Stiles hesitated, then continued at Peter’s encouraging expression. “The flower pots. Poppy really loves those and she hand-painted them the last time her mom visited us.”

Peter nodded. “Of course.”

“I think… once we’ve eaten,” Stiles said, and then swallowed hard. He glanced out of the window, gathering courage before continuing. He looked at Peter and said the hardest thing he’d had to say to his alpha so far. “I think we should take a walk or something. Talk about… about Poppy’s mom.”

Peter nodded again. “And Sam’s. You should be up to date on that, since everyone else knows what happened there.”

“Okay. Thanks. Unless it’s too late already and we should go do the shopping first?” Stiles backpedaled, hard, out of fear mostly. He didn’t want Peter to be disappointed in him, and how nobody could not be disappointed when they heard how he’d fucked up his life….

“Talk first, shopping second,” Peter said, then thanked Benny when another breakfast plate materialized in front of him. “Now go take a nap, we’ll clean up after we’ve eaten.”

“Thank you, alpha,” Benny said and limped to the back of the house toward his room.

 

* * *

 

 

It seemed like they both decided to save the talking for after they’d eaten and cleaned up. Once they were done with that, Peter went to get properly dressed—although the pajama pants and T-shirt combo had been nice to look at—and Stiles promised to meet him at the barn.

Stiles walked toward where he could hear his child chatter and squeal, enthusiastic about all the things. All. The. Things. Stiles smiled, thinking that she wasn’t that far from how he must’ve been as a kid, before his mom died.

The thought was depressing. The fact that he and his daughter shared that as a life experience…. It wasn’t nice. At all. It was horrible. It was one of the things nobody should have to go through, let alone share with a loved one.

“What’s wrong?” Roo asked from where they stood in the open doorway, catching his mood as weres were bound to do.

“Just… thinking.” Stiles smiled slightly, walking into the barn with them.

Nolan was on the other end of the barn, sitting on some straw bales with Sam on the crook of his arm and Poppy explaining something to them in her serious yet enthusiastic tone. Another thing she’d gotten from Stiles.

“So you’re telling me that _technically_ you could get a doll that looked even _more_ like you than Willa does?” Nolan asked her, eyes wide in a way that wasn’t real, but she bought completely.

“Yes!” she exclaimed and launched into another explanation while Stiles stood back with Roo.

“Thanks for looking after her,” he said quietly.

“It’s a pleasure, Stiles. She’s a great kid. Besides, we need to learn, there are two kids in the pack now and it’s gonna be a learning curve for us all. Well, except for you maybe.” Roo nudged at him and grinned.

“Yeah, at least I have that to contribute to the pack,” Stiles murmured. Then, because Roo looked like they might say something encouraging, he quickly continued. “Can you watch the kids for a while longer? Peter and I will take a walk, talk about stuff. We can’t have little ears around for that.”

“Sure.” Roo glanced out of the barn door, smiling and waving at Peter who was strolling across the yard toward them. “Will you be going to Target today?” they asked when Peter made it to the barn.

“We have to. There’s very little stuff here. We’ll have to take the SUV too for the car seats. If you and Nolan can wait until we get back before you go take care of Stiles’s old place?” Peter asked Roo and Stiles didn’t miss how he stepped closer to him as soon as he mentioned Stiles and Poppy’s previous home.

Stiles winced internally. He hadn’t realized how much he hated the old place. How dejected it had made him feel, how depressed, even. Maybe it was better that way. He wasn’t sure he’d made it out of the sane otherwise.

Peter looked at Sam longingly, then stepped back out. “If I go to him, he’ll want to cling to me and then we have to take him, and Poppy…,” he trailed off.

Stiles nodded as he followed Peter around the barn. “Can you show me the closest property lines?”

“Sure.” Peter pointed out a path. “Let’s go through there. The house is pretty much in the middle of the property, so none of the edges are too far. We could walk to the back one?”

“Show me the way, alpha,” Stiles said, grinning a little.

Peter almost preened in a way that made Stiles happy on the inside. The pack bond between them thrummed with something that felt like contentment even to Stiles. Weird pack magic shit.

They’d walked for a few minutes, when Stiles finally cleared his throat. “So, I have a bit over half of a bachelor’s degree in criminology,” he started. “I met Janey at the college, she was in one of my psychology classes, and we hit it off after studying together for a test. Anyway, she was… gorgeous. In the way weres are,” Stiles spoke quietly, not realizing that Peter glanced at him quickly at the last bit. “I noticed she was a wolf and told her I’d grown up around wolves and so on. Eased her mind about being at the college alone. She had pack at home in Washington state, and she’d come to Stanford to study. Anyway, we got together fast. It was awesome.”

And it really, really had been, at first.

“Did you take her to Beacon Hills?” Peter asked when Stiles got lost in the memories.

“Yeah, Dad and Melissa loved her.” Stiles smiled wistfully. “Then we went to Vegas for spring break. Her friends had a place there, it was cheaper than you’d think, of course I went with her. I should’ve known better when I couldn’t drag her away from the slot machines the first time.”

“She was twenty-one?”

“Yeah, I was barely twenty at that point. But you know, bluffing my way through all the shit back in the day in BH helped. Nobody asked me for ID there, not when I wasn’t trying to gamble myself.”

“What happened?”

They got to a point on the path where Peter pointed slightly to the left and they stepped off the path and continued through the underbrush.

“One night there, we got really drunk, and hey, I woke up married in Vegas,” Stiles said with fake cheer. “It wasn’t something I told my dad anytime soon though. He still doesn’t know, actually.” Stiles winced.

Peter shot him a look but didn’t ask anything. Stiles could guess what he was thinking.

“Yeah, so she gambles all her money in Vegas, some of mine too, we get married and go back to school. We moved in together off campus with some roommates. Everything was fine, and then sometime later we started to be short on rent money every month. Janey was taking care of it, she promised to figure it out, and it stopped for a while.

“Long story short, she had a gambling problem. A psychology major with a gambling problem, I know….” Stiles let out a bitter chuckle that Peter seemed determined to ignore. “After I found out that she’d used my information and the fact that we were married and gotten bunch of credit cards, then maxed them out….” Stiles ran his fingers through his hair and sighed. “It took me two years to figure it out, altogether. Two. Years. But see, she wasn’t a typical addict on the surface. I trusted her with our money, because she was my wife and so very normal. I loved her, and she loved me.”

“I can understand that,” Peter said as he held back a branch to let Stiles pass a narrow gap between trees.

“Then it came time to pay my tuition. But when I went to do that, the money wasn’t there.”

Peter stopped in his tracks. “No way.”

“Oh yes. This is really, really condensed, by the way. All of this. I don’t have the energy—”

“No, just tell what you want to and feel like I need to know, okay?” Peter placed a hand on his shoulder and squeezed. “It’s fine. Whatever you can share is enough.”

Stiles heard the “for now” Peter hadn’t actually said and sighed.

“Anyway. She’d gambled all my money and all hers, too. I couldn’t tell my dad, after all we were married, and he didn’t even know that. We got kicked out of school, and I told her I wanted a divorce. She said sure, but she needed a place to stay for a while. We shared a shitty apartment for a while and then the people she was borrowing money from came calling….”

Peter let out a growl that seemed more protective than anything, and he seemed sheepish when he glanced at Stiles. “Go on?”

“I told her to leave. Right then. We’d filed for a divorce and we got it. She moved out, broke my heart, of course, and now I’m there with pretty much nothing.”

“But she was pregnant?”

“Yeah, she turns up again, six months later with a baby in tow. I knew she wasn’t cheating, and besides, Poppy looked like me in my baby photos. It was obvious she was mine. I didn’t—like… it’s a cheap shot to think the baby might have not been mine. Janey wasn’t that kind of woman.”

“I believe you.”

They climbed on top of some ridge and Peter pointed out the right direction for him. They continued to walk.

“She said she’d give her to me, because she couldn’t have a baby with her. Not with, get this, _hunters_ after her.”

“What did she do to get hunters after her?” Peter looked surprised. It still wasn’t anything compared to how Stiles had felt while living through it.

“She’d borrowed money from one somehow.”

“No fucking way!”

“Oh yes,” Stiles said, laughing mirthlessly. “She fucked up in every possible way. Then, for the next three years, she managed to avoid the people she owed money to. Some of them still showed up at my place, and eventually I went from getting tired of that to just moving to another place.”

“You had Poppy’s safety to think of.”

“Exactly. Janey popped up semi-regularly. Enough to have some sort of a relationship with Poppy anyway. Sometimes she’d bring us money if she’d won some or managed to hold a job for long enough, and I couldn’t not take it, because I was working a stupid retail job and could barely pay the bills.”

“How did she die? Poppy said she went to sleep and didn’t wake up,” Peter admitted knowing that much.

Stiles winced. “Yeah. I couldn’t tell her about hunters yet, or bad people out to get her mom. She did something, maybe stole something, and hunters got her, I think. The cops showed me identification photos. It could’ve been just regular thugs for all I know. You don’t survive being shot twice in the heard even if you’re a wolf.”

The memory of the photo of her was still much too fresh in his mind, it hadn’t been that long, even though he had started to distance from her emotionally ages ago. He’d still loved Janey and she was still Poppy’s mother.

“Tell me something nice about Janey?” Peter said, probably trying to take his mind off the negative.

Stiles smiled. “She had the most beautiful reddish hair. Not strawberry blonde like Lydia’s, but actual ginger hair. That’s why Poppy’s hair has the red tint to it. She loved horror movies. Oh, and she wanted to go to Ireland one day, quote ‘to be with my people, the gingers’.” Stiles laughed at the memory. “She was so vibrant and lovely. But then again, she was also an addict who knew better and didn’t make any effort to get better.”

Peter reached for Stiles’s hand and squeezed it firmly. “So, about three years ago, a friend of mine called me in an all clandestine, cloak and dagger way, asking if my pack could house an acquaintance of his who needed to lay low for a while. We had the room, he said the person wasn’t in acute danger and certainly wouldn’t bring the danger with them. That’s how Meg to joined us.”

Stiles nodded and waited for Peter to help him up a cliff before pulling his hand from Peter’s.

“She was a wolf, originally from Alaska. Apparently the packs there can be a bit old-fashioned in many ways. They follow these ancient wolf pack rules, and as a result of that, she was in danger.” Peter stopped to point at the small valley of sorts below them now. “If you go down there and walk until the forest changes into a field, that’s the line of the back border.”

Stiles memorized what he was seeing as best as he could, then nodded. “Okay.”

They turned back and Peter helped him down the cliff, and didn’t let go of Stiles’s hand. Somehow Stiles didn’t let go, either.

“Meg’s father, Samuel, had accidentally killed a member of another pack where they were from. It was accidental, but there, it’s eye for an eye, and if you don’t get the person doing the killing, you go for their eldest child instead, and if you don’t get that child before they die in another way, you get the next and the next and so on.”

“Jesus….”

“Yeah. For all of Meg’s childhood, they never settled anywhere. It was to protect both Samuel and her. But every once in a while, they’d have a close call. Someone would find them and they’d had to run again. Then Samuel died in an accident, despite being a wolf, and it was only Meg’s mom and her. At that point, Meg was nineteen I think, and she left her mom at some relatives’ pack and vanished alone.

“She was twenty-five when she got here. She was exhausted and wanted to stay somewhere for just a little while. She knew she was doomed, it was ingrained in her. Running, never stopping, trying to postpone the inevitable.”

“That’s horrible….” Stiles felt for Sam’s mother, he really did. It wasn’t her doing, just what she’d been born into.

“Anyway, she stayed here for almost a year. During that time, we became close. Sort of a friends with benefits thing, nothing romantic. It couldn’t go anywhere, so we didn’t let it. Apparently, she was pregnant when she left, but I don’t remember a condom breaking. I mean, one could have, but you know how these things go.” Peter shrugged.

“She could still be alive. Is there anything we could do for her?” Stiles asked, looking at Peter, who glanced at him with a fond expression on his face.

“I wish there was. She left Sam behind and left, because she doesn’t want to bring the fight to us, and because she was injured. They would annihilate us if we tried to protect her, just to get to her.”

“But won’t Sam be in danger?” Stiles frowned.

“No. If they get her, it’s over. Samuel Senior’s debt has been paid, then.”

Stiles shook his head, and they walked in silence for a while. “Sometimes I wish I’d never gotten into all the supernatural bullshit,” he said with feeling.

Peter tensed. His hand in Stiles’s jerked minutely. Stiles realized what he’d just said and stopped and held onto Peter’s hand to stop him too. “No, I didn’t mean it like that. I know you blame yourself. You think you made it happen.”

“I _did_ kickstart it all for you, even if I was insane at the time.”

“You were hurting, your _wolf_ was hurting. Sure, Scott and I, we were sort of casualties of a one man war, but with the Nemeton… do you actually think I would’ve never gotten mixed into that shit storm somehow?” Stiles honestly believed what he was saying, and Peter seemed to pick up on it, too.

He smiled a little and looked down at where their hands were joined. “For all it’s worth, I still wish I would’ve bitten you instead of Scott.”

Stiles chuckled. “Yeah. With all that happened in BH, I think I might’ve been a safer bet, were you sane enough to make that decision.”

“I did ask you,” Peter said, grinning wolfishly.

“You did. The answer is still no. Every pack needs a human.” Stiles felt odd, almost bashful, under Peter’s gaze, so he turned away and let go of Peter’s hands. “Let’s go get the kids and go shopping.”

“Yay, shopping….” Peter’s tone was so sarcastic, Stiles could _feel_ the eye roll.

 

* * *

 

 

They were approaching the ranch yard when Stiles realized Peter hadn’t asked about why Stiles wasn’t in contact with his dad anymore.

“It’s because the money she gambled, my tuition money, was saved by my dad. It wasn’t my money, it was my dad’s. And he never caught on her being anything but a regular person, and I can’t do that to him. I can’t burst his bubble, let him know how badly I fucked up, and how he didn’t see it either.” Before Peter could object to his words, Stiles lifted his hand to stop him. “No. He has Melissa and Scott’s family. He has grandkids right there, and they send presents for Poppy. Hell, sometimes they even Facetime her. We just don’t go back, because I can’t lie to him eye to eye.”

“What do they think happened to Janey?” Peter asked, looking conflicted, yet understanding.

“I said some scumbag hunters got her. Killed her without a reason just because they thought she was a wolf.” His dad had bought it, too. It just proved how jaded everyone around Stiles had become after the supernatural burst into their lives.

“Okay,” Peter said quietly.

“Okay?”

“Yeah, let’s go get the kids and go shopping.”

“Okay.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next time: shopping. (I have none of it written yet, so the wait will be a bit longer.)

**Author's Note:**

> The name of this fic comes from the quote "Falling for him wasn't falling at all. It was walking into a house and suddenly knowing you're home."


End file.
